Educational Resources - Search Tool

For over 20 years, satellite altimeters have measured the sea surface height of our ever-changing oceans. This series of images shows the complicated patterns of rising and falling ocean levels across the globe from 1993 to 2015.

An animation showing “sea level fingerprints,” or patterns of rising and falling sea levels across the globe in response to changes in Earth’s gravitational and rotational fields. Major changes in water mass can cause localized bumps and dips in gravity, sometimes with counterintuitive effects.

Visit NASA NEO's Global Temperature Anomaly to observe values for months or years. These maps — developed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) — depict how much various regions of the world have warmed or cooled when compared with a base period of 1951-1980.

Tiny plants called phytoplankton grow in the sunlit waters of the ocean's surface. Like all plants, phytoplankton contain chlorophyll, a pigment that transforms sunlight into energy the plant can use. This same pigment gives phytoplankton their greenish color.

One of the key "vital signs" of Earth's vegetation is the total green leaf area for a given ground area. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites collects global Leaf Area Index (LAI) data on a daily basis.